Speaker & workshop Descriptions (Alphabetical)

Basic Itches – Health Collective – Saturday: 2-2:45pm Firestorm

Scabies, Lice, Bedbugs, and More– DIY Treatment of Unwanted Skin Critters – understanding scabies, ‘spaghetti fungus’, and other communicable itches common in our communities with a PA, an NP, and an herbalist.

Review of what the last decade has to taught us about the criminalization of undocumented families and the internalization of the border. Discussing concrete examples of community responses to border militarization in AZ.

The inward expansion of the border we have seen in the past decade has been accomplished through a shift from civil to criminal law when dealing with undocumented populations, and a careful balance of hard and soft controls as enacted by police, military, paramilitaries, nonprofits and civilians. Hard controls include imprisonment, deportation, torture, deprivation, assault, and death. Soft controls range from information gathering, reporting to state authorities, psychological operations, and ideological warfare. Anti-immigrant legislation has extended the reach of enforcement and resulted in record deportations. This will only worsen under the new regime. Communities in the South West have been dealing with the internalization of the border and the business interests behind it all in a myriad of ways: through direct aid in the desert, barrio support groups, migra patrol/cop watch, community paralegal clinics, marches, direct action, inter-faith organizing and broad community campaigns. It is past time for anarchists in the US to commit themselves to no border work. We have a lot to learn from one another and we must prepare for what is to come.

Herbal medicine can be a powerful tool for building resiliency to stress, trauma and over work. Here we’ll discuss some of our most effective plant allies, with cultivation and medicine making tips.

Burn Down the American Plantation: A Call for a Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement – The Base – Saturday 3-3:45pm Rainbow Classroom

The ascendency of Donald Trump to the presidency has polarized society and exposed the fragility of the political institutions in the US. With very little effort Trump and his administration have managed to erode the thin veneer of legitimacy that liberal democracy still retained. The foundation of the political conflict today does not begin with Trump, but is situated in the context of the US Civil War – a war that was never actually resolved. Slavery has never ended in the United States. Instead it was reinstituted after the war, expanded through mass incarceration, and normalized through the deputization of civil society against black people. The expansion and acceptance of terror in American society has now turned against many other segments of the population culminating in the conflict we have today. ​ Anarchists from The Base, a political center in Brooklyn, will look at how we can orient our struggle towards the abolitionist movement, and the black freedom struggle. Following the lineage of the black struggle, from Nat Turner to the Black Liberation Army, we can learn from the most revolutionary traditions of our society. We will talk about our projects and how we are trying to build a 21st century underground railroad coupled with a militant strategy. Could the formation of these new political projects catapult us out of the cycle of protests and help us create revolutionary organization? For insights we’ll analyze the Rojava Revolution, the most advanced anti-state struggle in the world, as we chart out an insurgent direction for anarchist organizing today.

What’s the difference between democracy and anarchy? The failings of the political system are obvious enough. But is the problem too little democracy, or too much? From the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to David Graeber and Noam Chomsky, nearly everyone claims to be democratic. In this provocative presentation, we will discuss what ties all these different understandings of democracy together and what sets anarchism apart. Reviewing how the movement of the squares, Occupy, Nuit Debout, and other recent upheavals have been shaped by democratic rhetoric and practices, we will consider other ways to understand what we are doing together when we make decisions.

A how-to walk-through of strategic thinking and perspective. Beginning with what strategy is, its key principles and concepts. Demystifying the process and terms as well as discussing the State’s use of oppressive practices and pacification. By the end of the conversation we’re going to be able to bring down the State and still have time to grab some Vegan Ice Cream before the evening is over…

This Spring NoDAPL water protectors and legal team members will be facilitating trainings across Turtle Island on resistance to the grand jury convened against water protectors at Standing Rock and building our capacities for strong movement defense against state repression. This two-hour workshop is open to all who have participated in the movement at Standing Rock, those who have supported the efforts on the ground from their homes and territories elsewhere, as well as all those who see that the struggle continues beyond the drilling beneath the Missouri River that is happening now. The fight isn’t over at Standing Rock, as over 700 water protectors continue their battles in the courtrooms with some facing federal felony indictments that carry a potential of 15 years in federal prison. The grand jury convened against water protectors continues as does the resistance to it. As extraction becomes the norm and the government ramps up its repression against those who stand in resistance, this workshop holds valuable information for those who struggle for Indigenous Sovereignty, earth liberation, and a future without oppression.

How do you want to die? A conversation on autonomy and desire at the end of life – Foxfire Doulas – Saturday: 3-5pm Mothlight

Anarchist rituals and symbols have always involved the dead– from the early flying of the black flag in Paris, Chicago, and Mexico as a symbol of misery, death, and revenge to the writing of the names of the dead on walls after police murders in Greece and the U.S. We tend to create our own memorials and funerals for our friends and comrades that die– unsatisfied with the sterile (and Anglo-Protestant) funerary tradition that has become the norm in much of our country. Yet we still live within a death-phobic society, one that generally avoids the topic at all costs, including quality of life for both the living and the dying. During this workshop we will focus on the questions we all too often fail to ask one another, like: how do you want to die? Through a handmade deck of cards that contain questions provoking us to think about both the mysteries and concrete realities of our own end of life as well as the deaths of our families, friends, and loved ones, we will work through some of this fear and curiosity with one another. Through an anarchist lens, we will frame this exercise in some of the history and current context for how death and dying became an enemy our society needed to conquer, rather than an inevitable process we all must pass through.

With the continuing waves of repression, we hope to build tools that combat the fear that we carry in our bodies. We are looking for new ways to strengthen resiliency in both our social movements and ourselves to negate the embodiment of state repression. This workshop will utilize movement and dance in an exploration of self and the boundaries of fear. The goal is to reconnect the body and mind in order to facilitate a physical and emotional experience while creating collective potential and resiliency. We desire something other than talking, and we recognize this may be outside the realm many of us are comfortable or familiar with. Come prepared to move!

This is an interactive workshop on how we can create effective media through a critical lens. We will work together to discuss best practices when filming actions and cops, we will talk about open source softwares, cheap or free resources, tips and tricks for filming, recording, documenting. There will be discussions on how to subvert media and how forms of media, especially social media, impact our subcultures and what we can do to change it in our personal lives. This will be primarily around video and audio but will discuss technology and computers briefly as well. We will offer participants handouts/zines on free and cheap resources.

Mutual Aid: New Bonds, New Revolts – Adam – Sunday: 4-6pm Firestorm

From the border wall to ICE raids; from poisoned landscapes and shell-shocked nations to impending global climate disaster—our world is facing a myriad of crises. Our private financial and emotional struggles mirror global upheaval and disaster. We could spend the rest of our lives battling these crises one by one, but they stem from the same source; we need to rethink everything according to a different logic. We’ll discuss what it will take to create communities based on autonomy, self-determination and cooperation and what others are doing around the world that we might learn from.

Join members of Blue Ridge Anarchist Black Cross for an evening of solidarity with long term political prisoners: people who have been incarcerated due to their activism and resistance to systems of domination and oppression. We come together each month to celebrate their birthdays by sending words of encouragement and support. We let them know that they–and their sacrifices for our movements–are never far from our minds and hearts.

Continuously showing up for comrades who have had large chunks of their lifetimes stolen by the State is crucial solidarity work. If you have ever sat in a jail cell–for even one night–you know how important it is to show folks they are not alone on the inside. If you haven’t seen the inside of a prison cell (and we hope you never do!), you can probably imagine how mentally and emotionally taxing it is to lose control over your physical self and surroundings. For those facing this reality, especially for years and even decades, any reminder of support and connection from the outside means more than most of us can imagine. We know because our comrades tell us again and again, it is no exaggeration: LETTERS SAVE LIVES!

In this presentation and discussion, volunteers with two regionally-based “books to prisons” programs describe their work corresponding with and providing free reading material to incarcerated people. They will reflect on ethical and political values that lead them to participate in these projects, and share what is meaningful as well as challenging about doing prison solidarity work over time. Attendees will hear from imprisoned people in their own words, as written in letters to volunteers, about what reading, writing, and books for both education and entertainment mean to them and how access to such resources shapes their experiences in prison. This interactive discussion will offer a window into how engaging one-on-one with imprisoned people reveals insights about larger systemic issues (of race, class, gender, sexuality, and more) that exist within–and in many ways define–the vast United States prison system.

Reflecting a reproductive justice lens and an approach to reproductive healthcare that is critical of the white supremacist bio-medical patriarchy, this workshop provides practical tools to address common reproductive health care complaints including treatment of infection outside or in tandem with in-office clinician care. The workshop highlights efforts currently made by individuals in Knoxville, TN and Asheville, NC to address a lack of affordable abortion care as well as barriers to accessing legal abortion care.

In the last few years we have seen a rise in direct confrontation with the Klan, neo-Confederates, Neo-Nazis, and their more hip, mainstream incarnation, the “alt-right.” The people that have come out to fight these enemies hail from a wide array of mostly self-organized groups spanning the radical milieu as well as non-political entities: from anarchists to old-school Communists, school teachers to sex workers, Black Lives Matter organizers to gang members. The fight to take down the Confederate flag in South Carolina, kick the Klan off Stone Mountain, and shut down Milo at Berkeley have not looked like the Antifa battles of years past. Yet “Antifa” is all over the news, and many are now picking up its banner again as a way to fight what they view as the rising fascism of the Trump era. Meanwhile, we are also seeing a return to the valorization and recruitment of anti-racist motorcycle and gun clubs, attempting to appeal to a disenfranchised white, rural, or working class audience.

Much of the media-hype over Antifa (and anarchists) in this current moment has overlooked the longer history of resistance to white supremacy by countless people who have not carried that banner. In the 150 years of fighting the Klan in our region, those fighters have come from white textile workers to Lumbee Indians, coastal maroons to Black veterans and gangs, and were generally not confronting a fascist state but rather the everyday workings of democracy. In light of this history, this discussion will examine the limitations of the Antifa model while also highlighting what is useful about that model, all with the aim of broadening its antagonism towards democracy, civil society, and whiteness itself.

Beginning with a brief discussion of common barriers that we may face when attempting to equip ourselves with lifesaving skills in the face of white supremacist capitalist patriarchal violence, the bulk of this workshop is an opportunity to actively practice physical self-defense techniques in a trauma-informed environment. Earnestly, I invite those who have never practiced fight skills in a class/workshop setting; those whose histories of trauma keep them from feeling able to practice physical self-defense techniques; those who feel deterred from training in martial arts gyms because of brodude culture; and any and all others who wish to sharpen their ability to defend themselves and others from harm.

The Tilted Scales Collective will present ideas from their book, A Tilted Guide to Being a Defendant, which can help people facing criminal charges not only figure out how to handle their legal cases, but also how to think about their cases. This book offers a way of thinking about criminal charges that is based on defendants’ goals: personal, political, and legal. And these goals are framed with this question in mind: “How is my case part of revolutionary struggle?”

The government has historically used criminal charges to disrupt and destroy radical political movements and to repress targeted communities (e.g., people of color, poor people, houseless people, queer/trans/gender nonconforming, etc.). Criminal charges are designed to keep communities under control and they are successful in a variety of ways, from putting millions of people behind bars or on probation to targeting prominent radicals to punish them while scaring others away from organizing. In political struggles, criminal charges often disrupt organizing by diverting people’s time, energy, and resources into legal battles and prisoner support. While criminal convictions and jail/prison sentences are an inevitable part of fighting for liberation, we do not have to allow this tool of state repression to be so destructive. In this presentation, the Tilted Scales Collective will present ideas from their book, A Tilted Guide to Being a Defendant, that are aimed at taking away the power of criminal charges while strengthening our struggles for liberation. This book is meant to help people facing criminal charges not only figure out how to handle their legal cases, but also how to think about their cases. Rather than being a how-to guide, this book offers a way of thinking about criminal charges that is based on defendants’ goals: personal, political, and legal. And these goals are framed with this question in mind: “How is my case part of revolutionary struggle?” A Tilted Guide to Being a Defendant was written by dedicated, long-term legal support activists and draws on the wisdom of dozens of people who have weathered the challenges of trials and incarceration, including many former and current political prisoners/prisoners of war.

Anarchist educator and author Shon Meckfessel presents his newest work “Nonviolence Ain’t What It Used To Be” and offers new angles on a seemingly intractable debate, introducing ideas that carve out a larger middle-ground between militancy.

US social movements face many challenges. One of their most troublesome involves the question of nonviolence. Civil disobedience and symbolic protest have characterized many struggles in the US since the Civil Rights era, but conditions have changed. Corporate media has consolidated, the police have militarized, dissent has been largely co-opted and institutionalized, but the strategic tools radicals employ haven’t necessarily kept pace. Our narratives, borrowed from movements of the past, are falling short.

Ward Churchill is author of Wielding Words like Weapons: Selected Essays in Indigenism, 1995–2005, coauthor of Pacifism as Pathology: Reflections on the Role of Armed Struggle in North America, Third Edition with Michael Ryan, and author of the forthcoming From a Native Son: Selected Essays in Indigenism, 1985–1995, Second Edition.

Wielding Words like Weapons is a collection of acclaimed American Indian Movement activist-intellectual Ward Churchill’s essays in indigenism, selected from material written during the decade 1995–2005.

Pacifism as Pathology challenges the pacifist movement’s heralded victories suggesting that their success was in spite of, rather than because of, their nonviolent tactics.

From a Native Son: Selected Essays in Indigenism is a newly revised edition of Churchill’s first volume of acclaimed essays in indigenism, selected from material written during the decade 1985–1995, that includes four additional pieces, three of them previously unpublished.

Ward Churchill (Keetoowah Cherokee) was, until moving to Atlanta in 2012, a member of the leadership council of Colorado AIM. A past national spokesperson for the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, and UN delegate for the International Indian Treaty Council, he is a life member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War and currently a member of the Council of Elders of the original Rainbow Coalition, founded by Chicago Black Panther leader Fred Hampton in 1969. Now retired, Churchill was professor of American Indian Studies and chair of the Department of Ethnic Studies until 2005, when he became the focus of a major academic freedom case. Among his two dozen books are the award-winning Agents of Repression, Fantasies of the Master Race, Struggle for the Land, and On the Justice of Roosting Chickens, as well as The COINTELPRO Papers, A Little Matter of Genocide, Acts of Rebellion, and Kill the Indian, Save the Man.